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Topic: Edel Hell (Read 1636 times)

Here is the recipe for a Helles that I'm currently enjoying. I decided to use a grist of Pilsner malt with some Vienna to give it a more golden color. I also paid attention to flavor and aroma hops since many Munich Helles do have a slight hop aroma. In fact, even most modern Oktoberfest beers do. Finally I fermented at 46 F and used a maturation rest at ~ 70 F. I'm not sure which steps made how much of a difference, though.

I have a Munich Helles on tap right now that turned out great as well. In fact so well that I'm entering it in the NHC. I used Pilsner malt with a pinch of Munich and WLP830 German Lager Yeast. I added a very small dose of flavor hops.

Red emailed me and mentioned that the amount of hops used in this recipe are much lower than what he had expected.

I agree with him but 0.2 g/l (about 0.13 oz/5 gal) is not a typo. This is actually what I used. The total alpha acid in this batch is ~50 mg/l. A previous batch used about 70 mg/l a-acid and my notes indicate that it seemed a bit bitter to me. So I scaled down the hop additions. In Narziss&Backs book the Lagerbier (which is a helles) hopping example cited 60 mg/l a-acid.

I rarely calculate IBUs and mostly rely on past batches to guide my hop additions. I think this is a good thing since it keeps me from being influenced by bittering guidelines. To balance this low bitterness the beer needs to attenuate fully or within 1-2 % of the attenuation limit.

It’s also beneficial to get the bulk of the bittering from clean high alpha hops. This reduces the amount of vegetative matter in the boil and with it the amount of tannins that are brought in through the hops.

Red mentioned that Jamil’s Helles in BCS has twice the amount of hops. Which is fine. But he might be going for a more hop forward example.

I was able to brew this yesterday, during a surprise ice storm. For some reason I got 93% efficiency into the kettle (I usually get high 80s and had adjusted Kai's recipe for that) so I ended up with OG of 1.058, a little higher than I would have liked but I'm sure it will work out.

About the hops: my Magnums are 10% AA right now, so I did 0.80oz in my 16gal (preboil) volume, rather than 0.43oz of 14% that Kai's recipe (scaled to my batch size) called for. This is a little hoppier than Kai's original, but still less than Jamil's Helles from BCS (last time I brewed that, I used 2.50oz of 4% Hallertauer as bittering in the same size batch).

I left the two later additions as Kai spec'ed - 0.43oz each, however I did not have Hallertau Tradition on hand, so I used regular Hallertau instead.

Last night I had a chance to drink Innstadt Edelsud http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/6052/43158. I thought it was really good, the brewery is in the town that my Mom grew up in, so this was the beer my grandfather drank. I recently got my hands on a temp controller, so I can now ferment lagers and I want to give Kaiser's Edel Hell recipe a try.I have never messed with water additions or pH.The recipe states that the acid malt is used to adjust the mash pH.If I brew this with my tap water should I leave out the acid malt.Will it still turn out OK?I know the best thing would be to get a water report, or purchase RO water and work from there, but that isn't happening anytime soon.